Monday, February 28, 2011

SLOW PLAY is alive and its poster boy is J.B. Holmes

After some research, I determined that JB’s glacier-like pace in the quarterfinals of the Accenture Match Play Championship was not simply a failed attempt at gamesmanship.  As I looked for material on the Tour’s Slow Play rules online, I found more than a few articles or blogs that singled out JB Holmes as a culprit.  It was mentioned in the telecast that he is know for his “deliberate” pace but I think that he single-handedly forced the change in the format from the usual 36 holes to an 18-hole final.  Bad weather was the stated reason but I believe the decision was made when JB was 5-up on Bubba Watson after 10 holes and the Tour realized that, should he make the finals, 18 holes would require the normal time allotted for 36. 

If you did not see it, JB Holmes could do nothing wrong and was killing Bubba Watson – 5 up after 10 holes.  Match over right?  Not so fast – Ha Ha.  JB hit an errant drive on the 10th hole and slowed down dramatically.  Peter Jacobson quipped:  “He’s gone into a 4 corner stall.”  In spite of it, JB won the 10th and it only got worse.

As I watched, thankfully on DVR, I thought that he was purposely stalling in an attempt to alter Bubba’s tempo and charge.  I know I have run into more than my share of opponents that have this strategy in their competitive arsenal – I loath it AND them and have learned how important it is to ignore it and rise above it.  Thankfully, Bubba was undaunted and I believe spurred on by it to win.  Further,  JB’s unusual slow play, and the apparent lack of confidence and focus, had to play a large part in his undoing.

How slow was he?
For perspective, the PGA Tour allows 40 seconds per shot and the LPGA Tour has recently stepped that up to 30 seconds per shot.  It is a bit more complicated than that but those numbers set the standard for how long it should take from the time it is determined to be a player’s turn for him/her to hit the shot.  Obviously, it behooves players to have their “homework” done and be ready to play before it actually becomes their turn.  If so, 40 seconds is more than enough time, or is it?

JB’s abuse of EVERYONE’s time was so much the story that I put a stopwatch on him and Bubba.  Thanks to my DVR, I was able to time eight of JB’s normal shots.  To be fair, I selected only those that were not “trouble” shots but were either tee shots, shots from the fairway following good drives and one approach shot from the rough in a JB-described “good lie.”  I also needed to be able to capture the start time when it was clearly JB’s turn to play, which further limited the number.  For these eight, JB averaged an abysmal 70 seconds including the quickest at 58 and worst 154 seconds.  Remember, these were not the really demanding ones.  I’m not counting the 8:13 it took to take two drops on the 18th hole or the 8:42 to drop on the play-off 10th.  Incidentally, the time to execute his shot following both of these drops exceeded 60 seconds.   
  
On the other hand, Bubba Watson is anything but a dawdler.  A typical tee shot took 20 seconds from the time he pulled the club from his bag.   One of his slowest times involved a trouble shot through a bush on the play off hole that took 29 seconds from when it was determined to be his turn.

Finally, to my amazement, on the 19th tee and after Bubba had hit a drive into trouble, JB altered his routine and let fly in only 36 seconds?  Unfortunately, the result was terrible and cost him an unplayable penalty and the match.  JB, please get your routine under control and in much less time!  You, the game and those of us that enjoy it will be better for it.
 

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Where is Tiger's Game Now?

There has been quite a bit written, and discussed on TV, of late on the state of Tiger's game.  Not to be left out, I decided to compare his most recent three rounds from Torrey Pines to a representative sample that I have of his 2009 performance (33 rounds).  The recent sample is only 3 rounds but it is all we have since ShotLink only captured those rounds on the South course.
As the graphic above shows, Tiger's game is off everywhere EXCEPT PUTTING!  This goes against the pundits but bottom line Tiger's performance on the greens, when analyzed the ShotByShot.com way, - by DISTANCE - is not bad and equivalent to that of his remarkable 2009 season.  Further, Tiger's putting performance at Torrey Pines was as good as Bubba Watson's.  We all saw Bubba make some heroic putts down the stretch to secure his victory, but his total body of  work was not up to  that of our typical PGA Tour Winner.  Our 2010 Winners averaged a +5 Putting handicap while Bubba was at +2.  Why?  He made three putting ERRORS (3-Putts from inside 40 feet).  Tiger had only two 3-Putts, but both were outside 40 feet (44 and 54 feet).  Further, with all Bubba's much-touted work on the 10 foot and in range, he only made 5 of 9 (56%) in the critical 6 to 10 foot range.  Tiger made 7 of 14 (50%) and our 2010 Winners 62%.

Driving - Tiger's decline in performance obviously involves missed fairways.  His Fairways Hit was down from 9.6 in 2009 to 6.7.  More important are the ERRORS, or drives hit into NO SHOT positions that require advancements to return to normal play.  Tiger had six such errors in the 3 Torrey Pines rounds.  This compares to less than one driving error per 4-round event in 2009.

Long Game - From where he drove the ball, Tiger actually recovered fairly well to average 11 GIR's.  This is a far sight from the 12.9 GIR's in 2009.  We have consistently seen that averaging 70% GIR's (12.6), while avoiding driving errors, is a must for Tour Winners.  Witness, this was obviously Bubba's strenght as he averaged 14 GIR's with only one driving error.

Short Game - Tiger has long been renowned for having one of the best short games ever BUT, not so much at Torrey Pines.  He averaged eight short game shots per round (Chip/Pitch & Sand combined) and his numbers were a long way from his usual high standard:
  • Avg. Putting Distance:  10.5 feet vs. just outside 6 feet in 2009.
  • Errors (shots missing greens):  3 (12%) vs. 5% in 2009.
  • % Saved:  44% (thanks to fairly good putting) vs. 69% in 2009.
It will be interesting to see how quickly and how far Tiger comes back to his form.  I have no doubt that he will but also find it hard to see him winning six events in a given year as he did in 2009.  No fault of his but there are just too many young stars on Tour and a new crop emerging every year.  further, they don't appear to be intimidated by anyone or anything.